Christmas Eve
by prplemyth
Summary: Rachel and Nico, during their first holiday in their new apartment, invite Percy and Annabeth over for dinner. Christmas fic. Oneshot. In the Illogical and Stupid universe. Shameless fluff. Rico. Percabeth. Did I mention fluff?


_A/N: I have no idea what in god's name this is other than random Rico and Percabeth fluff involving minimal amounts of plot and intelligence._

_I just really wanted to write Christmas fic *le shrug*_

_...And I forgot that I wrote Presents and Pancakes. Oops :P_

_Set in the Illogical and Stupid universe._

_Read, review, and I hope you enjoy!_

* * *

><p>"If you want my body –"<p>

"Please stop singing."

"And you think I'm sexy –"

"Rachel, I mean it."

"COME ON, NICO, LET ME KNOW!"

"Rachel, I will kill you."

I bumped Nico with my hip, grinning broadly. "Aw, come on, dark child of death, come dance with me." I spun a little bit, shaking my butt and slightly grinding into Nico's crotch. "Come on, dead boy, in the spirit of Christmas, dance with me!"

"It's not even Christmas music!" he complained, trying to push me off. Instead, I just turned around and wound my arms around his neck, dancing closer to him.

"Oh, don't whine, it's somewhere on this playlist. If it means you'll dance with me then we can put on something classic. How's Jingle Bell Rock sound?"

"I wouldn't know," he muttered, deadpan, "I can't hear anything but your playlist of absurd 80's dance pop."

"Shame," I added, moving away from him and switching the song to Jingle Bells.

"Oh yeah!" I shouted, spinning.

"Ow!" exclaimed Nico. "Your stupid pony tail just smacked me in the face, Rachel, would you just stop?"

I shook my head, grinning even wider.

"You do realize that doing this makes me want to punch you in the face, right?"

"Yes," I said, pausing to dance a little bit during the instrumental part of the song. "And you do realize that you getting mad makes me want to dance like an idiot more, right?"

Nico stared at me, a look that suggested he couldn't decide if he wanted to lock me in a closet or hit me in the face with a pillow.

Instead he picked me up and dropped me on the couch. "There," he said, turning from me, "now stay."

I stayed.

For about seven seconds.

Then when the song changed to a dance remix of Last Christmas, I stood up and grabbed Nico's hands out of the dish where he was washing the cookie pans and started dancing with him.

"Let go of me!" he said, attempting to sound fierce and angry. However, he had started to smile, just a little bit at the corner of his mouth. "Come on, Rachel, we're having company over. It's our first holiday together in our new apartment. We have to try and be adults."

"Nah," I said, taking his hands and putting them on my waist. "Let's dance. I like dancing better."

"You are SUCH a ten year old," he said, finally breaking the angry façade. It was strange, but only when it was the two of us did I see the person he was supposed to be, a silly twenty-one year old, newly living with his girlfriend in New York despite parents who would rather they didn't.

And, you know, with the girlfriend who was the Oracle and had to answer to Apollo and his father was the god of the underworld.

But other than that we were a perfectly normal couple.

Ish.

Nico pulled me close and the two of us stopped swaying. He brushed a strand of hair out of my eyes, smiling at me. "You know," he began, "we have about half an hour before Percy and Annabeth are supposed to drop by." His fingers skimmed up and down my sides, sending a shiver down my spine. I smirked, leaning in closer to Nico and letting my lips hover a breath away from his. I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach them.

"I suppose you're right," I breathed.

The two of us paused right before each other, trying to make the other one move. Because that's how we were, of course. The only person close to as stubborn as I was is Nico di Angelo.

Of course the two of us would end up in a relationship together.

He always caved first.

As always, all I had to do was drum my fingertips across his stomach and he broke, pressing his lips hard against mine and picking me up. I locked my legs around his waist, and he walked the two of us over to our couch.

His shirt was off within seconds, my fingernails grazing his sculpted abs. I listened closely to his staggered gasps, smiling at each gasp I elicited.

"Rachel," he breathed, "oh, gods, why are you so good at this you're supposed to be the virgin oracle, you absolute –"

"Absolute what?" I asked, letting my lips press hard to the hollow of his neck, "goddess? Angel? Best girlfriend in the universe?"

"I was going to say tease," he said. I kissed away his smirk as he wrapped his arms around me and slipped his fingers under my sweater. His hands held tightly on my hips, kissing me hard. I shifted on his lap, feeling him shudder than still, and I paused for a moment, waiting for his reaction.

"You," he said, his voice carefully controlled, "have a way of practically killing me."

I shrugged and leaned my forehead against his. "You expected something different?"

In a flash he had me underneath him, and was kissing down my throat and across my collarbone.

It would have gone perfectly had Percy and Annabeth known that people are supposed to knock and not arrive fifteen minutes early.

"Happy Holidays, Happy Kwanza, Glorious Hanukkah, Merry Chris – WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

I found myself somewhat catapulted off of Nico and crashing into a box of magazines I had been meaning to toss out.

Granted, I had been meaning to stop making out with Nico before they got there, but hey, I was quite the procrastinator.

And it always came back to bite me in the ass.

"We're using a sonic screwdriver to boil a pot of soup," said Nico, rolling his eyes. "What the Hades do you think we're doing?"

"I…You…Stop doing that!"

"They've been doing that since our wedding night, you adorable, obtuse, seaweed brain," said Annabeth, bringing up the rear with a bowl in her hand. "We brought soup."

"I'm not eating that if you're the one who cooked it," called Nico. "Hey, Rach, have you seen my shirt?"

Percy slapped his hand over his eyes, putting the bag of various cheeses and breads on the table and turning around. "I do not need to see any of this."

"Oh, come on, Percy, it's not like we're their parents."

"No," said Percy, still avoiding turning around, "but Nico is sort of like my little brother and Rachel is a little bit like my sister and –"

"You realize you've kissed Rachel before, right?" Annabeth said. I laughed as I moved some pillows.

"Come on Percy, you should probably keep your whole judgment thing in check seeing as, if we're going by genetics, Annabeth is your cousin's daughter."

Percy glared at me, but I just continued to smile and adjusted my shirt, pulling it down to cover me thoroughly. "Oh look!" I said brightly. "Here's your shirt, Nico!"

Nico stood up, leading Percy to, still while glaring, slap his hand over his eyes again. I allowed myself to stare at Nico a little bit as Nico pulled the shirt over his head, and turned again to spot Percy and Annabeth, staring at me.

"What?"

"I want to stop talking to the two of you," said Percy. "This is too much."

"Okay," I scoffed, "what, and walking in on you and Annabeth getting jiggy with it in the Big House kitchen wasn't a –"

Annabeth burst into laughter and turned bright red, leaning against the counter and dropped her head in her hands. "Oh, gods, let's not talk about this, shall we?"

I shrugged. "Time for Percy and me to make sure no one burns dinner this time?"

Annabeth frowned. "Oh, would you shut up. That was one time. And one cake!"

"It was Percy's birthday cake and you turned it to charcoal."

"Shut up, Nico."

Percy snorted. "Yeah, Wise Girl, leave the cooking to Rachel and me."

Percy and I went into the kitchen, and I brought out the ingredients for a large Greek salad.

"No olives!" called Nico. "Remember that."

Percy stared at the mix of vegetables lying on the table. Part of the mix that I had premade had olives.

Oops.

"And no cucumbers!" added Annabeth.

"There are both cucumbers and olives in this salad," observed Percy.

"Yes there are."

"They are going to kill us."

"Yup."

* * *

><p>"There are olives in this and I hate you for it," stated Nico, promptly getting up and spitting out a mouthful of salad into the trash.<p>

"Which is why I conveniently checked my salad before eating." Annabeth was delicately removing each and every cucumber from her salad and resting them on the side of her plate. "I knew they were going to make at least one mistake. However I do think we were lucky for that mistake to come with salad, which everyone knows comes after the main course."

Nico rolled his eyes. "Just because you decided to go by the typical European courses…"

"Well I'm sorry if I like my salad after my entrée."

Percy snorted into his forkful. "Coming from Miss I-Thought-Baking-Powder-And-Baking-Soda-Were-The-Same, I find it amusing how picky you are about the order you eat things." Annabeth shot Percy a look and, by the sound of it, kicked him under the table. "Hey, at least I didn't mention the olive oil instead of molasses incident."

I shuddered. "Worse. Cookies. Ever."

"You people are just jealous because I can –"

Nico laughed. "No, actually, we're just amused because we finally found something you weren't good at, Annabeth."

Annabeth's eyes narrowed. "Fine. But just wait until later when I whoop all of your butts as gift giving. That I will win at. So bring it on."

"Speaking of gifts," I interrupted, "when's the little one due?"

"Beginning of January, we think," said Percy, gazing at his wife's stomach with an awestruck smile, "but it looks like she might come early."

Annabeth rolled her eyes and absent mindedly laid her hand over her stomach. "This girl is having a field day with these Braxton Hicks, I'm telling you."

"And reason number five thousand why it's good I can't have sex," I said, stirring my coffee. "No babies, no labor."

Annabeth laughed. "But they'd be the cutest little pale gingers of them all!"

A strange choking noise to my left drew our attention to Nico, who seemed to have coffee and a fair amount of Bailey's spluttering all over the place.

"What the heck is wrong with you?" Percy asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

"No sex talk at the table," Nico managed to choke out. His face was bright red. "None of that, thanks."

"What, you're still not clear on where babies come from?" Percy joked, smiling broadly. "It's like you don't remember that time when Annabeth decided that your frequent visits to redtube meant you needed to have the talk."

"Which is a memory that I have all but bleached from my brain," said Nico, going a little bit pale.

"On a completely unrelated note, let's have cake!" Annabeth said, trying to get up. "Ooh…Percy, can you…?" Quick and careful, Percy was standing and had swept Annabeth up in his arms, big pregnant belly and all.

As opposed to me, who thought it was adorable, Annabeth folded her arms and glared at Percy. "Not exactly what I meant, you big goof."

Percy grinned and pressed a quick kiss to her lips, making me grin and Nico pretend to gag. "Don't want the pregnant love of my life to hurt herself," he said, carefully letting her down to the ground.

"As opposed to your nonpregnant love of your life?" Annabeth quipped. Nico snorted again.

She began to laugh, and then suddenly her face went pale and she inhaled quickly. "Oh, my gods," she said, gasping.

"What's wrong?" Percy asked, cradling her face in his hands. "Is the baby okay?"

"More than okay," she muttered, her face screwing up in pain. "Oh, gods, I think…I think the baby's coming."

My jaw dropped. "You mean…"

"She's coming," said Annabeth, gasping. "Perseus Bradley Jackson your daughter is coming and ATHENA'S HAIRPIN THIS HURTS." In addition to that, Annabeth let out a string of expletives that left even Nico speechless. "What are you waiting for, Percy?" Annabeth shouted.

"Get the car, Rachel," said Percy calmly, "the keys are in my coat pocket."

"I…I…I…Oh, my gods, Annabeth's having a baby," said Nico, beginning to pace. "Oh my god, she's….Baby. There's going to be a baby. She's having a –"

I couldn't take Nico's useless babbling anymore. "Sorry about this, Nico," I said, and I whacked him across the back of the head with one of the magazines in that box. Nico shook his head.

"Oh, right, sorry, thanks. Keys, right?"

Percy nodded.

"I'm on it." Nico reached into Percy's coat pocket and sprinted down the stairs.

"Rachel, I'm going to help Annabeth down to the car. Can you grab our bags?"

I nodded. "No problem." I gathered all of their things and opened the door. "Annabeth," I said. "You ready?"

For once I saw sheer panic written across her face. "Not really," she said, allowing a small smile to write itself across her face. "In truth, I'm terrified…"

I grabbed her hand and she squeezed hard, and Percy pressed a kiss to the top of her head as we made our way down the hallway. "You can do this, Annabeth."

"Yeah," added Percy, "you held up the sky."

"And on a much more difficult task," I said, grinning, "you've put up with Percy all these years."

"And now I have to give birth to his daughter," moaned Annabeth. "Percy if your kid is anywhere near as difficult as you are –"

"Believe me," said Percy, "that cannot be possible."


End file.
